Truth, the basis for all things in existence, fabricates the universe through intertwining threads of honesty and fraudulence to create the one and only certainty life offers: reality. Without truth, there is nothing—no existence, no reality. Imagine truth as the only light in a single room—a light powerful enough to illuminate everything you can possibly imagine within the allotted space. However, no matter how bright the light may shine, the light can only be useful when it is turned on. If the light were, say, to burn out, its absence would leave in its place darkness, shadows, and essentially nothingness. If truth is this light bulb, falsehood is its burnt-out counterpart. It’s as if the bulb itself is still there, but the light nevertheless fails to appear. Hawthorne’s Dimmesdale is
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In the case of most human beings, hypocrisy is the direct result of self projection, wherein a person takes whatever flaws he resents inside himself and “projects” said flaws onto another person—a purely subconscious action. Mr. Dimmesdale, however, falls under a completely different category. This sort of conscious hypocrisy reaps all the consequences of the unconscious sort with the exception of “the momentary relief of being deceived,” forcing him to deal with his “self-acknowledged shame” and become the “remorseful hypocrite” we learn him to be in the chapters leading into Chapter 14 (131). The “anguish in his inmost soul” prevents him from completely fading into the shadows, as opposed to someone who blindly critiques others for their shared flaws (133). If it were not for this simple but crucial element of Dimmesdale’s character, “there would have been no such man,” for falsehood would have cloaked, consumed, and swallowed him whole (133). Instead, the small flicker of hope inside his mind sparks a potential for redemption and provides one last grab at
In the case of most human beings, hypocrisy is the direct result of self projection, wherein a person takes whatever flaws he resents inside himself and “projects” said flaws onto another person—a purely subconscious action. Mr. Dimmesdale, however, falls under a completely different category. This sort of conscious hypocrisy reaps all the consequences of the unconscious sort with the exception of “the momentary relief of being deceived,” forcing him to deal with his “self-acknowledged shame” and become the “remorseful hypocrite” we learn him to be in the chapters leading into Chapter 14 (131). The “anguish in his inmost soul” prevents him from completely fading into the shadows, as opposed to someone who blindly critiques others for their shared flaws (133). If it were not for this simple but crucial element of Dimmesdale’s character, “there would have been no such man,” for falsehood would have cloaked, consumed, and swallowed him whole (133). Instead, the small flicker of hope inside his mind sparks a potential for redemption and provides one last grab at